The Nitty Gritty on Economic Development | Eastern North Carolina Now

    There is nothing to economically develop at the county level in so far as new industry. That reality applies to every county in the United States. The world and national economies are sinking and will continue to do so for several years. There is no competition for the necessities of manufacturing. There is plenty of labor, raw materials, and buildings. There are very few new start up manufacturing plants any where in the world. Those already in the manufacturing business know the ropes and have surplus capacity to use before moving any where. The last thing they need is government.

    The strategy for economic development in North Carolina and the United States is shot through with socialism and even fascism. Yes, fascism. Fascism is a system whereby government becomes a financier and partner with business. Fascism limits competition. It happened in the auto and financial industries at the federal level. At the state and county levels socialism is preferred. We are giving money to help you along, that is if we like you. Both of these systems are unfair to the taxpayer and to existing business. They use taxes collected from existing business to fund companies who are in competition for the same labor, and raw materials. With both socialism and fascism the government decides who the winners and losers will be. Being able to compare economic development to these two extreme forms of government should be a wake up call for all of us.
Beaufort County Commissioner Hood Richardson making himself perfectly clear: Above.     photo by Stan Deatherage
    There is a gagle of special interests who flit around economic development like moths drawn to a flame. In general there are three classifications. Sales, mostly of insurance and real estate, manufacturing and commercial interests and those who believe government is the answer to everything. Each of these groups is looking after themselves and not the greater public good. Insurance and real estate agents want the sales leads to the new people coming to town. Manufacturing and commercial interests want to know what the new competitor for labor is about and to look for rakeoffs for themselves. People in the big government group are simply misguided liberals who have never read the Constitution or developed an understanding of the fundamentals of capitalism.

    There is nothing wrong with having an economic development officer even in the small counties of Eastern North Carolina. Economic development should not be their full time job. The purpose of the economic developer should be to facilitate the process for both the new business and existing businesses who want to expand or have a regulatory problem. The economic developer would answer questions, provide information, introduce business people to regulatory officials and assist when regulators get in the way of development. They would facilitate the smooth process of opening a new business and provide assistance to existing businesses who have encountered regulatory problems. Notice we have not handed out any money or tax credits and the expense has been small.

    Both taxes and regulations are oppressive in North Carolina. Why not lower taxes and reduce regulations to provide an environment that business would want to be in. Texas has done a very good job in providing a business friendly environment and they are better off than almost every other state. Tort reform would knock the legs from under ambulance chasing lawyers and reduce insurance costs. Eliminating business privilege taxes, annual filing fees for registrations and even eliminating or reducing corporate income taxes would help. A lot could be done by reducing the amount of environmental regulations. North Carolina has a contorted system that is, for the most part based of phony science and someone's opinion about what is good for us. The State of Pennsylvania requires the Department of Health to inspect restaurants once each year. North Carolina requires four inspections with an abundance of nit picking.

    Recent claims about tourism have been shown to be pure hype. Beaufort County supposedly had seventy million dollars of tourism last year. That comes to fifteen hundred dollars per resident. I did not get my fifteen hundred dollars last year, did you? What if we simply did away with the hotel tax. A lot of people would go out of their way to stay in Beaufort County hotels.

    Our economic well being would be greatly improved if we "bought American made products" when prices are competitive and reduced taxes by sending illegals home.

    Becoming economically attractive is easy if we can just get the government and special interests out of the way.